BOSNIAN Serb tyrant Radovan Karadzic stunned a trial yesterday by claiming he was a peace-lover – not a ­genocidal maniac.

The 67-year-old is accused of masterminding atrocities during the Bosnian war including its bloody climax, the massacre of 8000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.

But he claimed in court: “Everybody who knows me knows I am not an autocrat, I am not ­aggressive, I am not intolerant.

“On the contrary, I am a mild man, a tolerant man with great capacity to understand others.” His claims brought snorts of ­derision and cries of: “He’s lying. He’s lying,” from Muslim survivors watching from the public gallery in The Hague.

Karadzic was given 90 minutes to open his defence of his role in the 1992-95 conflict that left 100,000 dead.

He faces 10 charges, including one of genocide, shelling the Bosnian city of Sarajevo and persecuting Croats and Muslims throughout the war.

Karadzic, a former psychologist and poet, told judges he was a “physician and literary man” who was a reluctant player in the violent break-up of Yugoslavia.

He said through an interpreter: “Instead of being accused of the events in our war, I should be rewarded for all the good things I have done.

“I did everything humanly possible to avoid the war… I succeeded in reducing the suffering of all civilians.” The statement was not made under oath, meaning he could not be cross-examined.

Karadzic was captured on a bus in Belgrade in July 2008. He had spent more than 10 years living in disguise under a false name.

He boycotted the start of his trial in October 2009, saying he had not been given enough time to prepare.

The first witness did not appear until April 2010 and prosecutors rested their case on May 25 this year.

Karadzic’s military chief, Ratko Mladic, is also on trial in The Hague, facing the same charges. Both men face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

In another of the tribunal’s courts, Goran Hadzic, a former leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, became the last of the 161 indicted suspects to face justice as his trial got under way.

He was arrested last year in northern Serbia after more than seven years on the run and pleaded not guilty to murdering hundreds of Croats and expelling tens of thousands more.